Convenience Foods

Convenience foods are foods that have had preparation steps incorporated into their processing, or have been completely prepared during processing. This decreases preparation steps and time for the consumer. The "convenience" can mean the premixing of the ingredients for a cake or offering a fully prepared frozen meal. The term convenience food is generic and can apply to just about any food, but it is generally used in reference to canned items, instant foods or mixes, frozen foods or meals, and fast foods. Although they can be more costly than home-cooked meals, the trend is toward their
increased use throughout the world.

Judith C. Rodriguez

Bibliography

Anderson, J., and Deskins, B. (1995). The Nutrition Bible. New York: William Morrow.

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There are 48 million school children who are served by school food services in the United States everyday. Many of these children participate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), which was established by Congress in 1946 to provide low-cost or free nutritionally sound lunches to public school children. By 1946, about 7.1 million children were being served. This grew to 22 million by 1970, and by 2000 more than 27.4 million children were fed through the NSLP. Since 1946 more than 180 billion lunches have been served. School food service and the NSLP play a very important role in children's learning.